PENITENCE: An Andi Comstock Supernatural Mystery, Book 2 (95,893 words) (4 page)

. . .

Andi experienced an unexpected reluctance to leave the Belt building. Maybe it was reading about contract killers. Or maybe she was hoping Clem Naylor would return to tell the rest of his story. Whatever the reason, she procrastinated for another five minutes before she finally tugged on her wool coat.

She passed Father Riley as she drove over to the restaurant. Normally, she’d make the short walk, but the thermometer had dropped another five degrees since she’d gone out for hot chocolate with her workmates. With everything on the way to icing up, she didn’t want to be out after dark trying to maneuver her way back to the Belt building on sidewalks that had not yet been cleared or salted.

Evidently, the rest of Edgerton had gone home either early or directly after work. Andi had her pick of curbside parking spots.

She traipsed inside, relieved to be away from the building where she worked and whatever it was that had held her there like some kind of invisible force.

She took off her scarf and coat and hung them on the coat tree near the front door. The hostess led her to the table she and Riley usually shared, near the window. Andi ordered a bottle of Montepulciano before she even sat down.

“Having a rough day, are we?” the hostess asked.

Andi gave her a wry grin. “Something like that. Father Riley’s joining me, so please bring two glasses.”

A few minutes later, Andi refilled her glass, with an internal take-it-easy reminder that she had to drive home.

Father Riley entere
d
Trattoria d’Italia. Behind him was Phil Nelson, from the Chapel of the Garden mortuary. “Look who I found,” Riley said.

“Hi, Phil.”

“Hello, Andi. How are you?”

“Good and you?”

“Just came over to pick up a go-order. We have a viewing tonight, which I was hoping the family would postpone because of the weather and the roads, but they decided not to. Thought some lasagna would help keep me going.”

“Your order will be ready shortly,” the hostess told him.

“Join us while you’re waiting,” Andi said.

“Thanks.” He unbuttoned his coat, but didn’t remove it.

“Wine?” Andi asked.

“Sure.”

She signaled the server for another glass.

“So,” Phil said once they had privacy, which wasn’t long, since they were the only diners in the place, “I gather you’ve had another questionable visitation from one of our guests.”

In Phil-talk,
guest
was code for dearly-departed-who-had-been-cremated. Andi wasn’t ready to divulge anything until she’d spoken privately with Father Riley. “I did.”

Phil arched his eyebrows, waiting.

Riley chuckled. “All we know so far, Phil, is that he says he did something bad.”

Phil mulled that over. “Clem Naylor was as pure as the driven snow.”

“Everyone has skeletons in their closet,” the priest said.

Andi gave him points for keeping it ambiguous.

“Here’s your order, Phil.”

Saved by the hostess.

Phil stood and buttoned his coat. “Add a five dollar tip to my tab, will you? Damned awful night to even be working.”

The hostess flashed him a smile. “I’m sure the server will appreciate it. Thank you.”

Phil finished his wine, thanked Andi, said his goodbyes, and was out the door.

Father Riley stared at Andi. “Well?”

Even though she knew the hostess and the server were out of earshot, Andi looked around anyway. She leaned over the table, reaching for a piece of bread, and whispered. “He put out a contract on his wife.”

Riley blinked as if he hadn’t heard her correctly. “Contract?”

She nodded.

“On his wife?”

Andi gave him a look. “He hired someone to kill her.”

The priest’s eyes widened. “Oh, dear God!”

“Exactly.”

The server brought their salads. “More bread?” she asked.

Andi looked at the empty basket in surprise. “Please.”

As soon as the bread had been replenished, the server took off for the kitchen again.

“He hired someone to kill his wife? Why?”

“He thought she was having an affair, when really, she was learning portraiture. She wanted to paint a family portrait for him for his birthday next month.”

Riley froze, a fork laden with salad halfway to his mouth. “He couldn’t just ask her where she was during the times he thought she was sneaking off to be with another man?”

“I guess it never occurred to him. He automatically assumed the worst and now he regrets it.”

“I’m sure he does. What is wrong with people, anyway?”

Andi shrugged. “Beats me. After twelve years of marriage, you’d think they could talk about anything.”

Riley finished chewing and said, “Believe me, I’d be out of a job if that actually started happening.”

Andi stared at him. “Really? I can’t think of anything I wouldn’t discuss with Jack.”

“So you’ve told him about Naylor.”

“Not yet. He’s in Iowa, remember?”

“And phones don’t work there?”

“The man he’s picking up was in an altercation with another prisoner this morning over a sexual overture. He’s in the hospital for two days and asked to talk to Jack this evening. With any luck, he’s confessing everything so he can get the heck out of the Hawkeye State and return to Edgerton without anyone else trying to make a girlfriend out of him.”

To his credit, Father Riley showed no signs of being shocked. “Prison is prison.”

“He should have thought of that before he hit and ran.”

“Harsh, but true.” He finished off his salad and reached for another piece of bread. “All right, you can’t discuss it with Jack right now, but you will, right?”

She nodded. “I really don’t have anything to tell him yet, except that the guy hired a hitman to take out his wife. I don’t know who he hired, when it’s supposed to happen, or even how.”

Riley refrained from commenting when the hostess approached to clear their salad plates.

The server was right behind her with steaming entrées. She placed the chicken picatta with spaghetti in front of Andi and the chicken parmigiana with linguini in front of Father Riley. The hostess came back with a chunk of romano and grated it over both plates. “Anything else I can get you?”

Andi glanced at the priest, who shook his head, and smiled up at the hostess. “Thanks. We’re good.”

Father Riley murmured a quick prayer over their meal and they dug in.

“If Naylor is anything like Sherry, he’ll be back to talk to you tomorrow.”

“I hope so! Otherwise, how can I stop it from happening?”

The priest shot her a look of reproach. “It’s not your job to stop anything.”

“I know that, but I could talk to someone whose job it is to do something.” She waggled her fork at him. “By the way, now you’re sounding like Jack.”

“Jack, who isn’t here.”

Like she needed the reminder. She tumbled other possibilities around in her brain. “I could go talk to his LT. Stacy told me I can come see her anytime.”

He stabbed a piece of chicken with his fork. “You won’t have any choice, if Naylor comes back and gives you more information before Jack returns.”

“Agreed.”

“You may have to pump him if he doesn’t give up the particulars.”

“I know. I took the initiative this afternoon and he was completely forthcoming until he dropped his bombshell and poof, he disappeared in a puff of smoke.”

Riley gave her a droll look. “Ha, ha.”

Andi grinned. “Sorry, I couldn’t resist.”

“What’ve you found out about his wife?”

“She’s two years younger than he is. She’s a stay-at-home mom and their kids are Aria, age six, and Christian, age eight. Clem says he didn’t even want children to begin with, but as soon as they arrived, he was over the moon about them. He also says he fell more deeply in love with his wife after each child was born.”

“It happens that way,” Father Riley said. “People don’t realize how important children are, both to love and to carry on the family line. Once a child arrives, the entire world changes for the person who becomes a parent.”

Andi thought about that for a moment. She’d always known she wanted to marry and have kids, but did she really know what life had in store for her when that time arrived? Probably not. “Denise volunteers at the kids’ school. Like her husband, she’s headed up some fundraising efforts for playground equipment, computers, and stuff like that.”

“Any other volunteer work?”

“I found her name associated with an artists’ guild, so it stands to reason that she’s drawn to portraiture because she has some talent.”

“A young mother with two children. We can’t let this happen, can we?”

“I take it you’re in.”

“For better or worse.”

“Let’s hope not worse.”

“Let’s
pray
not worse.”

“Amen to that.”

Father Riley smirked at her, then twirled some linguini onto his fork, savoring the bite. “I love the marinara here. I tried to buy the recipe once, but Giuseppe just laughed and said he’d sell it to me by the pint.”

Andi chuckled. “Trattoria definitely serves comfort food for the soul.” She finished off her meal and said, “Want to share a dish of spumoni?”

He gave her an incredulous look. “You really have to ask?”

. . .

The roads were so bad, it took Andi thirty minutes to get home once she dropped Father Riley off at the rectory. Normally, she made the trip in fifteen minutes, even in rush hour traffic.

Her nerves were slightly frayed by the time she parked under the portico and climbed the stairs to her apartment. To further exacerbate her stress level, the overhead light in the stairwell was burned out and she hadn’t left the porch light on. In fact, she never left it on because it seemed redundant with an overhead light. She made a mental note to call the building manager in the morning to report the outage.

Inside her apartment, she hung her coat and scarf in the closet, then beelined for the bedroom, where she disrobed and climbed into her flannel jammies, chenille robe, and slippers. Next, she turned on the gas log in the fireplace and put on some easy listening music. She made a hot toddy and situated herself on the floor in front of the coffee table with her laptop.

The rest of the evening was spent further exploring how to hire a contract killer.

Just how every single woman wanted to wile away the hours in front of a cozy fire when the tall, dark, and handsome man in her life was halfway across the country.

Several hours later, the
Cops
-theme ringtone woke her with a start. Andi scrambled up off the floor to retrieve her phone, surprised that she’d fallen asleep over the coffee table.

“Hi,” she said, her voice sleepy.

“Hi, yourself. Did I wake you?”

“Yeah, but I fell asleep on the floor, so I’m glad you did.”

After a brief pause, he said, “Why were you on the floor?”

“It’s still snowing here. I put on a fire when I got home and was doing some Googling on my laptop, which I set up on the coffee table, blah, blah, blah.”

He laughed. “I can just picture it. “What’re you Googling?”

“How to hire a contract killer.”

Jack laughed again. “Did I do something to piss you off?”

“No.”

Again, a short silence from him. “Okay, what’s happening?”

Andi heaved a resigned sigh and gave him the scoop on Clement Naylor.

“Jesus. He didn’t say who he hired or how to contact the killer or when?”

“No. I’m hoping he talks to me again tomorrow. I’ll try to get the information out of him.”

“I should be there,” Jack said, “but I can’t. Look, if he comes clean, go see the LT, okay? She can get something rolling.”

Maybe it was because she was tired, or frustrated, but Andi couldn’t keep the sharpness from her response. “That’s what I planned to do, since you’re not here.”

A brief pause later he said, “Hey, I didn’t mean to offend you.”

Andi sighed. “You didn’t, and I didn’t mean to sound so snarky.”

“I wish we could kiss and make up.”

Andi smiled. “Me, too.”

“I guess you’ve learned a little about butting in where you shouldn’t since the incident with Sherry Hemmer.”

He should have left well enough alone. “A little,” she said, her tone noncommittal.

“Andi, don’t go investigating on your own.”

“I’m just Googling, Jack. No one ever died from that.”

“That we know of. Promise me.”

“If you’re going to lecture me, I’m done talking. If you want to whisper sweet nothings into my ear, I’ll keep listening.”

For the space of several heartbeats, Jack apparently considered his options. He chose door number two and began to whisper sweet somethings into her ear.

Andi’s body began to heat up. “You don’t play fair.”

His seductive laugh came over the phone line and curled through her like a warm caress. “You set the rules, babe.”

. . .

Andi arrived at work at 7:00 a.m. again. All the better to give Naylor a broader window of opportunity to show up and spill the rest of his guts to her when no one else was around to hear.

Only he didn’t.

By noon, she couldn’t concentrate any longer on Bunnicula. She’d already emailed Brent that she needed to take an extra hour at midday, and had arrived an hour early to compensate. As usual, he had no problems with her request.

Andi pointed her VW Touareg north, heading toward a high-end neighborhood known as Haven Estates. It wasn’t far from where Vaughn Hemmer, Sherry’s husband, lived with his four kids. If she had time, she’d stop and say hello.

In the meantime, she was looking for the home of Denise Naylor. She considered signing up to sell Mary Kay or Avon, just so she’d have an excuse to ring the woman’s doorbell. Instead, she had to be satisfied with a slow drive-by. At the end of the block, she made a U-turn and cruised back by, just as slowly.

Being a real estate magnate, Andi had expected Naylor’s family to live in a McMansion, but instead, the house was a modest Cape Cod style, complete with white Priscilla curtains in the windows, white shutters against the dusky gray siding, and the requisite white picket fence around the yard. Rather than a silver soccer-mom van in the driveway, there was a black Yukon, all the better to transport kids and their friends. A cocker spaniel romped back and forth in the snowy front yard with two children. Apparently, school had been cancelled because of the snow.